The Mystery continues

Visitors use imagination to fill the near empty Philadelphia home of Edgar Allan Poe

October 25, 2009|By Diane Stoneback OF THE MORNING CALL

Visiting the Edgar Allan Poe National Historic Site will leave you with the haunting feeling that the author himself would be pleased with the mysteries that still remain about his home, his life and his death.

Poe, one of America's greatest writers, experienced the six most productive years of his life in Philadelphia from 1838-1844.

This is the time when "The Murders in the Rue Morgue," "The Fall of the House of Usher," "The Tell-Tale Heart" and "The Gold Bug" were published and helped earn this master of the macabre a place on high-school reading lists.

Poe is also believed to have worked on final drafts of his famed poem, "The Raven," while living in this house at Seventh and Spring Garden streets, although it wasn't published until after he moved to New York. A statue of the bird, with wings extended, stands near Poe's home.

The author spent just one year in this modest brick home, but the intrigue begins as soon as you step into the rooms he shared with his wife Virginia, mother-in-law Maria "Muddy" Clemm and calico cat named Catterina.

Every room is empty: the parlor, the dining room, the three bedrooms, the study, the basement but why?

Walking through them on a self-guided tour can be a little unnerving when only the sounds of your footsteps break the silence.

The intrigue continues as visitors learn that historians don't know how some of the rooms were used, though signs provide the most recent speculation about them.

Finally, the mysteries continue in the newly installed displays celebrating this year's bicentennial of Poe's birth. They reveal that scholars still aren't certain what caused the author's strange and unexpected death in Baltimore at the age of 40.

An introductory talk and short video set the scene for visiting the house. Eric Knight, a park ranger, explains why the rooms are empty.

"We have no idea how the home was furnished or what happened to the Poes' belongings. We could have filled the home with period-correct pieces, but then we would have to explain that none of it belonged to the author. It's much more in Poe's style to let visitors' imaginations fill in the spaces."

The home's broad floorboards ... Could they have inspired Poe's murderer in "The Tell-Tale Heart" to hide his victim beneath the floor?

The brick chimney supports in the basement wall ... Could they have triggered Poe's imagination when victims in "The Black Cat" and "The Cask of Amontillado" are walled in while still alive?

October is one of the busiest months at the site. Notes the ranger, "Poe died in October. People who love Poe's writing make pilgrimages here and drag their friends and families with them, too."

But Poe's works also draw visitors at Halloween, when "people like to be scared and frightened," says Knight. "They remember feeling those emotions in his tales and come back to stir those memories."

Of course, it's also scary to come face to face with literary terms your English teacher made you memorize, like ratiocination (deducing what has happened) and the ending denouement (where a detective explains how he drew his conclusions to solve a mystery).

The Boston-born Poe also lived in Richmond, Va., Baltimore and the Bronx. This rented Spring Garden Street home is the largest he ever had and is the only one of his five Philadelphia addresses that's still standing.

When Poe lived here, Spring Garden was a new neighborhood and home to other writers, editors and businessmen. Today, however, it appears a bit edgy. Visitors, who must park on neighborhood streets, are advised not to leave anything of value in sight inside their cars.

The first room of Poe's home that you'll encounter is the first-floor parlor. Two paintings, on the otherwise-bare walls, offer a hint of how the room might have looked. One shows a writing desk and bookshelves above it. Another adds a whimsical fireplace mantle decorated with a few trinkets and a clock above the remains of the fireplace.

Next, stop is the dining room/kitchen where "Muddy" spent many hours working. Unlike other families of the day, the Poes didn't have servants.

The very steep and narrow stairs creak as you climb to the upper floors. Poe's bedroom and a space that could have been his study or a sitting room are on the second floor. The study's wall painting shows Poe working at his desk, while Catterina snoozes next to his papers.

The third floor contains Virginia's and Muddy's rooms. Knight explains, "During Poe's time, it was not unusual for couples to sleep in separate bedrooms. But there was a particular reason why the author and his wife kept this arrangement," explains Knight.

Not long after the Poes moved into the house, Virginia contracted tuberculosis, which was very contagious. Also, because Poe kept such irregular hours, he would not have wanted to disturb her sleep.